“This announcement will forever change the face of banking in this country resulting in over a thousand staff losing their jobs and hundreds of high streets without any banking facilities.

“Why is the Government signing off this alarming branch closure programme?”

RBS insisted it is providing customers with “more ways to bank than ever before”.

The move comes after the bank’s chief executive Ross McEwan signalled in October that the lender was moving on from its troubled past when it posted its third consecutive quarter in the black.

Last week, the Government also said that it is dusting off plans to re-privatise the lender by offloading around two thirds of its stake, bought at the height of the financial crisis.

It plans to restart share sales in RBS by the end of the 2018-19 financial year and sell off £3 billion a year over five years.

The Government said it now faces a £26.2 billion loss on its stake in RBS, down from a previous forecast of £29.2 billion in March, after a recent recovery in the value of the bank’s shares.

But it will still see the Government take a hefty loss on its stake in the lender, with shares languishing well below the average 502p-a-share price paid during the 2008 and 2009 bailout – at around 271p at today’s prices.